Escape

Iva Toguri's difficulties were accentuated by the austerity of daily life.  Japan and China were locked in a brutal four year war. Japan's economy depended on imports, but its militarism isolated it from other industrial nations.  Such consumer goods as cotton and wool could only be obtained on the black market. Food was rationed. The absence of fresh fruits and vegetables contributed to a rising incidence of beriberi and pellagra. Civilians were expected to make whatever sacrifices necessary to enhance wartime production of arms. Soldiers were billeted in private homes.  Foreigners, particularly westerners, were treated with suspicion. On several occasions Toguri saw neighbors whispering and pointing at her.  Aunt Shizo cautioned her about speaking English or reading English language newspapers in public.


Japanese authorities closely monitored civilian political activity.  Most feared was the Tokko - the Japanese secret police.  Intimidated citizens called the Tokko the "thought police". Like the Gestapo in Germany, the Tokko were infamous for indiscriminate arrests and brutal interrogations. Before Toguri arrived in Japan more than 36,000 Japanese civilians were arrested and never seen again.  Toko spies infiltrated all levels of society.  One never knew if a colleague or a neighbor would report an conversation or activity to the Tokko.

Reports of Japanese troops torturing and executing Chinese civilians swelled a rising tide of American animosity towards the Japanese. The day after Toguri arrived in Japan, President Roosevelt froze Japanese bank accounts in the United States.  As the tension between the United States and Japan increased Toguri's situation became more perilous.  Fearing a visit from the Tokko, she made plans to return home.  She went to the American consulate for a passport. Consulate officials told her that her application would have to be forwarded to Washington for validation. Her certificate of identification was a worthless scrap of paper.  On November 25th, Toguri placed a desperate international call to her father Jun.  She begged him to figure out a way to get her home.

To be continued

 

Stranger in a Strange Land

At three o'clock in the afternoon on July 24, 1941 the Arabia Maru docked in Yokohama harbor.   A debilitating mix of homesickness and seasickness made Toguri's first week on board difficult. The rest of the trip was more pleasant. She socialized with the the crew and she learned some  Japanese phrases. Still, after nineteen days at sea, she was eager to get off the ship and plant her feet on solid, dry land. Her joy at ending the voyage was short-lived.  Japanese immigration officials did not accept her certificate of identification as a valid document.  She had to wait another day for a temporary visa to be approved. Disappointed Toguri spent a lonely night a gangplank away from dry land.

The next day, visa in hand, she disembarked.  Waiting for her on the dock was her uncle, Hajime Hattori and her cousin Rinko.  Aunt Shizu was too ill to make the trip. Wanting to make her feel at home Uncle Hajime suggested lunch at a western style hotel. She was thrilled when she surveyed the menu and saw she could order a cheesburger with French fries.

After lunch the trio boarded a train for the seventeen mile trip to Setagaya, a suburb of Tokyo. It was a steamy summer day, and Toguri sweltered in the unfamiliar humidity.  The initial excitement of meeting her relatives dissipated as the reality of her situation began to sink in. Looking around the train, she saw only Japanese faces.  Even though she shared their physical features, she felt out of place. She did not think of herself as Japanese; she was American.

In a 1948 interview she said, "Japan impressed me as very, very strange.  All the customs were strange to me, the food was entirely different, wearing apparel different, houses different, people were stiff and formal to me...I had no idea what the country was going to be like until I hit Yokohoma...I felt like a perfect stranger, and the Japanese considered me very queer."

As she settled into the routine of nursing her sick aunt, Toguri did her best to adapt.  She took her shoes off before entering the house. Instead of sitting in a chair she sat on a mat with her legs folded beneath her and she mastered the trick of eating with chopsticks.  She had a difficult time adjusting to the lack of privacy. The house was small with paper thin walls.The bathroom had no toilet, only a hole in the floor.  Accustomed to rushing around, she had to learn of move carefully from one room to another.  Most troubling was her inability to understand what people were saying. Determined to fit in she enrolled in a conversational Japanese class.


Quote from Duus, M. p.50

To be continued

 

Born on the Fourth of July

Iva Toguri was born in Los Angeles in 1916 on Independence Day.  She was the second of four children. Her older brother Fred was born in Japan. Her father Jun and her mother Fumi immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1913.  Both of her two younger sisters - June and Inez were born in the United States. The Toguri's were committed to "Americanizing" their children. Her father was delighted when Iva was born on the fourth of July.  According to Iva, "He was so proud of it! He wouldn't let me forget it! You'd think he won the lottery!"  

When Jun's import business failed he moved the family from Los Angeles to the dusty border town of Calexico. He started a new business as a middle man trading cotton. The rural, small town atmosphere was ideal for the active Iva who loved to ride her bike, roller skate and play baseball. Unlike her sisters, she preferred competitive games rather than sewing and cooking. Jun tried to interest his daughter in fishing, but she thought it was boring. She said she would rather be doing something than waiting for a silly fish to jump on her hook.  Her sister June thought she was a tomboy.  In his biography "Tokyo Rose/An American Patriot" Frederick P. Close summarized Iva's restless personality.  "Over and over as a child and as an adult Iva Toguri displayed her love of action. She was not contemplative.  Hers was an exterior rather than an interior life. She preferred doing over thinking or talking, working over sitting or relaxing.  Given a choice between board games and tree climbing, the youthful Toguri picked the tree every time."

Toguri's family attended a Methodist church. She was a Girl Scout, and she played on her high school tennis team.  At home in the evening she loved listening to radio dramas.  One of her favorite shows was the "Shadow" which began every broadcast with the ominous warning "Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?  The Shadow knows." Another favorite was Little Orphan Annie. The popular broadcast chronicled the adventures of a young crime fighter and her dog Sandy. The twosome was rescued from tight spots by her millionaire guardian, Daddy Warbucks and his mysteterious Sikh Indian companion Punjab.  While she sat cross-legged on her living room floor listening to stories about a lonely girl pitted against evil forces young Iva could never have imagined she was destined one day to have her own radio show - the Zero Hour in which she would be featured as "Ann" orphan of the Pacific.

 To be continued

Quotations from Close, F. P.  p.2;1

 

 

 

A Note To My Readers

 

We like our heroes to wear white hats and our scoundrels to wear black. But we do not live in a black and white world. Shades of gray color both minor and momentous acts. In his film "Lincoln "Stephen Spielberg accurately portrays the great man trading jobs for votes.

Was Christopher Columbus the intrepid explorer described in some history books or was he the merciless slave trader portrayed in other historical accounts? I believe anyone who has an interest in history will welcome a deeper understanding of how personal character and momentous events can converge to produce a scoundrel and a hero in one and the same person.  In my blog "Ironic American History" I describe how infamous labels can obscure heroic deeds and conversely how heroic deeds can camouflage villainous acts.  Here are a few illustrations:

• Clarence Gideon, a convicted felon, was too poor to pay for a defense attorney. He appealed to  the Supreme Court from his jail cell and won a landmark Supreme Court decision that mandated all states to provide public defenders in criminal cases.
• Four years before he attempted to sell the defense plans of West Point to the British, Benedict Arnold saved the American Revolution at the Battle of Valcour Island.
• Wernher von Braun is considered by many to be the "father" of the American space program. During World War II he oversaw the manufacture of German V-2 rockets in slave labor camps.  The V-2s pulverized London in the latter stages of the war.

I welcome your suggestions and input. Insert a comment after a post and nominate your choice for inclusion in the pantheon of scoundrels who made America great.

No Passport

 

The Arabia Maru cleared the harbor and picked up speed. The rolling expanse of cerulean sea stretched to the horizon. The chatter of the Japanese crew was a vivid reminder to Iva Toguri and the other passengers that they were embarking on a journey to a much different world than the one they left behind. She felt unprepared for the trip. She was Nsei - second generation Japanese, but she was Japanese in appearance only. Her parents had immersed their children in American culture. She didn't speak Japanese; she couldn't use chopsticks; and she hated rice.

Despite these limitations she comforted herself with the thought that in a few months she would be returning to the States. In her haste to book passage she did not have time to wade through red tape for a passport. This did not seem to be a problem. Her father, Jum, assured her that the certificate of identification issued by customs was all she needed to prove her American citizenship. When she was ready to come home, he said, she would have no difficulty booking passage.  He could not have been more wrong.

To be continued

 

 

The Voyage 

July 5 ,1941

Seagulls wheeled in the sparkling California sky as the Japanese cargo liner Arabia Maru glided out of the San Pedro harbor.  Its destination was Yokohama, Japan.  Dressed in a white sharkskin suit a slim 25 year old woman leaned against the ship's railing. Right hand shielding her eyes, Iva Toguri squinted against the harsh glare of sun and sea. She caught one last glimpse of her parents waving from the pier. How suddenly her life had changed! Instead of preparing for medical school, she was on her way to Tokyo to minister to her sick aunt Shizu. The young woman waved one more time then she turned to survey the mammoth vessel.  It would be her home for the next two months.

This was Toguri's first time at sea.  She felt a pang of anxiety as she contemplated the dangers of a 5,000 mile journey across the vast Pacific Ocean.  Her intuition wrestled with her rational mind as she thought about floating on a body of water three miles deep on a big chunk of iron. Like thousands of novice sea going voyagers before her she might have stamped her foot down on the gray metal deck. It was an irrational movement intended to reassure a nervous imagination that the ship was indeed seaworthy.  Looking around it was clear that The Arabia Maru was no luxury liner. It was a hard working cargo ship more suited to transporting freight than passengers. She watched as crew members scurried about stowing lines while they shouted directions to each other in Japanese.

As it passed out of the harbor and into the open sea the ship began to rock gently side to side. Slowly Toguri walked forward towards the ship's bow. Her gait adopted a sway of its own as she tried to keep in rhythm with the ship's movement. She skirted two cargo hatches and passed under a complex arrangement of thick cables and towering booms. A dozen or so other passengers milled around the deck as they too sought to get their bearings. The clanging of a winch pulley attracted her attention to the top of the main mast. A stark white flag emblazoned with a crimson circle and rays snapped in the breeze. It was the "Rising Sun". The iconic emblem was recognized throughout the world as the symbol of the mighty Japanese Empire.

To be continued "The Myth of "Tokyo Rose"

 

A Celebration

 

On an unseasonably warm Chicago afternoon, January 15 2006, a small group of family and friends sat down for lunch at Yoshi's Cafe.  It was more than sushi and sake that lured the diners to the elegant French-Japanese fusion restaurant. They were there to witness the culmination of one of the strangest sagas in American history. Convicted of treason in 1949 and pardoned by President Ford in 1977, Iva Toguri, known to many as the notorious "Tokyo Rose" was about to receive the 2006 Veterans Commission Edward J. Herlihy Medal for loyalty and patriotism.

All eyes riveted on the 89 year old Japanese-American woman as she stood to receive the award.  Her steady gaze softened as James C. Roberts, president of the American Veterans Center, placed the red-white-and blue ribbon with medallion around her neck.  With faces wreathed in smiles, the small assembly burst into applause.  Finally, the myth of the World War II traitor "Tokyo Rose" was dispelled.  On this day the diminutive American patriot Iva Toguri stood tall.

Toguri returned home that evening a happy woman. Her ordeal was over. Over the past 65 years she had resigned herself to the possibility that she would always be branded - "Tokyo Rose". Her redemption was now complete.  In the eyes of those who mattered most, the World War II veterans, she was not a traitor.  She was a hero. Although there is no record of what Iva was thinking that wintry evening as she climbed into her bed and put her head on her pillow, one can imagine her thoughts drifting back to that fateful summer morning - July 5, 1941 - when a good Samaritan mission took her to the wrong place at the wrong time.

To be continued